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{
    "id": 505233,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/505233/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 102,
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    "content": "by the National Assembly of the Republic of Kenya. That is something I thought I should highlight. The other legislation that should be amended is the Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Authority Act; that is, the famous (AFFA) of 2013. Very briefly, the amendments here intend to remove Fisheries Department from the application of this Act because I think it is too huge so that it only deals with agriculture and food. We will be left with the Agriculture and Food Authority which is a matter of scope. I am sure that these amendments have been brought by industry players and, perhaps, at the Committee level, this is an area we will want to understand in terms of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries at the national level. We should consult widely with the county governments because agricultural sector is now heavily devolved to ensure that these amendments do not go against the Constitution. We are removing Fisheries Department from the ambit of this Act. The other amendment provides for the membership of the AFFA Authority which is established under the Act. This simply removes the number of national Government representatives. If you look at Section 5 of that Act, you will see the membership of the board is full of national Government representatives. A few of them have been removed or deleted like the representatives of the Transition Authority (TA) and the Ministry for Lands, Housing and Urban Development. Some of them have been reduced. Instead, an amendment has been put to provide for eight nominees of stakeholder institutions. Under the existing law, farmers have a representative. However, it was found important to have other stakeholders in the agricultural sector to be involved. One of the thinking we need to put here with regard to the representation of county governments in this board given that much of agriculture is a devolved function. As I go towards the end, let me mention very briefly two other legislations that are affected. One is the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Act of 2013.There is an amendment which removes Livestock and Fisheries Department from the purview of that Act. The other one is the Crops Act. There are a number of miscellaneous amendments to the Crops Act of 2013. However, let me mention just two. The first one is the amendment that empowers or provides for the Cabinet Secretary responsible for Agricultural matters to appoint the board to manage the commodities Fund. The other one which I will highlight very quickly will be of interest to the Senator for Meru County. I am not seeing him here. He is also the Chairperson of the Committee on Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries. By relationship, this also concerns me because under the Crops Act, it includes a crop known as Catha Edulis or miraa . There was a lot of scientific debate last year on whether miraa is a tree, drug, crop or what it is. The Amendment settles it so that miraa becomes protected as a crop under the Crops Act. I am sure the Senator for Meru County as well as the Senator for Wajir County where miraa consumption is very high will be interested to push this amendment through. The last one is the Transition to Devolved Government Act. The Transition to Devolved Government Act is being amended in two main ways, the rest are quite trivial, but the two main ways is to ensure that when the TA transfers functions to counties, other than just transferring the functions to counties, it must come up with a programme of The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}